Continued Licona/Ehrman Discussion

Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona. This is the dividing line. The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us.

Yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence. Our host is dr. James white director of Alpha Omega ministries and an elder at the Phoenix reformed Baptist Church. This is a live program and we invite your participation.

If you'd like to talk with dr. White call now. It's 602 nine seven three four six zero two or toll-free across the United States. It's one eight seven seven seven five. Three three three four one and now with today's topic.

Here is James white.

Opening Remarks and the Upcoming Debate Schedule

And good afternoon. Welcome to the dividing line. All of the usual suspects are already lined up in channel. All the DL addicts are live and ready to go. Some folks that really need to get in life but hey, it's nice to have them there and we are continuing today with our review of the Bart Ehrman Mike like Hona encounter on unbelievable I.

There is a chance. There is a small chance. I'm not sure how big the chance is but there is a chance I will be on unbelievable next week. We will see. Right now. Yeah, it's unbelievable. The only problem is right now see both people would be on the phone line.

And I know that Jason doesn't like to do that. And he asked me if I get an ISDN connection so I could be on. The problem is there's eight hours difference between here and London. I would have to find an ISDN connection at 5 a .m. In the morning, and there's just no way to do it.

So I said look, you know, we'll do that. It will use the dividing line studios. So, you know the phone it's still a phone line. But at least what's going into the phone line would be the best quality we can get which is what we're doing right now.

And so if he doesn't find somebody over over the weekend there in the UK and I'm concerned you will. But I still have to study anyways one way or the other. I said I would so I'm having to study this other subject.

And it's it would be a very interesting encounter. Okay, I'll go ahead and tell you. Maybe next Tuesday. I'll be taking on Brian McLaren who is Rob Bell in Paragraphs. So I already started today and We'll see.

And if not, then I'll have something to review on the dividing line. So we will see we will see how that all works out. But anyways, we are continuing on. With our study here in. We started to got let's see how far we get about 12 minutes into the discussion last time and We are listening to an encounter a discussion of the biblical evidence for the resurrection between Barterman and Michael Icona we are doing this because Christians have to think this through and There are differences and apologetic methodologies that result in differences not so much in the conclusions as in how you present the information and.

That's what we do in this program. I hope it is helpful to you to think through these things and let's just go ahead and dive back into our discussion. We are as I said about 12 minutes. Well, actually it's more than this if you've listened to the program because I cut out the first part.

But 12 minutes into the wave file I have left anyways, and we press on that Paul is repeating what he heard from them.

This isn't like a game of telephone. This is Paul getting it directly from the eyewitnesses and of which he was one and. And passing along in this formalized creedal.

Formula, are you happy to grant then. But that that this was it is a reliable bit of evidence for. The fact that people experience some kind of resurrection.

Experience. I I think it's right that that some of Jesus Followers Can be shown to have thought that Jesus was raised from the dead within a few years after his death.

And that they claim that they saw something and his first Corinthians 15 a case in point.

Well, I wouldn't quite go as far as Mike does on first Corinthians 15 because he doesn't actually say that. You know that he learned this from Peter or or anything like that. He he says that he received it and.

So, you know, it's plausible that that this is an account that he heard from the Jerusalem Apostles. Although he doesn't he doesn't actually come out and say that. So he's writing first Corinthians probably about 25 years after the fact.

And so it's not as if we have somebody who's writing two weeks after Jesus died saying that 500 people saw him last week. We don't have that. What we have is somebody writing 25 years later saying that that he has heard this that these people saw him and.

For you that introduces an element of sort of, you know Things change in 25 years that there is an accretion of you know possible.

I think there is that but I mean Mike is absolutely right. You don't need a long time for legends to crop up.

You you need no time at all. Now. I remember I mentioned last time that Within the past year. I listened to a debate and the Christian debater who for the moment will remain nameless Was arguing very strenuously on the basis of a particular study and again, I Don't have any problem with these studies.

I don't have any problem bringing these issues up. It is how you present these things as they relate to the truth of the gospel. If you are making the truth the gospel dependent upon these other sources as These sources change then you've got yourself a real Major problem and what I mean by that then is that here's a guy he was arguing.

Well, this study showed that myth does not arise this fast. And now a year later. I'm Hearing. Oh, yeah myth myth arises just like that You know within minutes so it's it all has to do with in the Apologist mind and this is determined by your theology.

This is your your theology determines your apologetics. Not the other way around if it does the other way around it's backwards. Your theology determines your apologetics. What are you basing your claims?

Concerning the authority of scripture the authority of the Bible the authority of the gospel on is Does the gospel the message here of the resurrection have to appeal to something outside of itself if you have to appeal to an outside authority that outside authority becomes superior to The authority that you then claim for yourself because you're having to appeal to an outside authority.

It's very very important.

We got to think these things through. See how this works as anybody knows who has heard an account of something that happened yesterday and the account turned out to be wrong. You know. These things take almost no time at all.

All I'm saying is that from a history if you're just looking at from a strictly historical point of view the way Mike is. What we have is somebody writing 25 years later from a strictly.

Historical point of view this is over and over again. I'm gonna have to stop and say You have to determine you have to recognize Naturalistic presuppositions in Bart Ehrman's historiography. Because see if you don't challenge them then history has to take place separately from God and what is the Christian God?

But a God who has acted in history. Now I am NOT saying that Naturalistic historiography can prove God's actions in history. What I'm saying is any serious historiography will have issues in it when you enforce a Naturalistic presupposition upon it because it will never be able to fit when God acted in history.

See the difference. I On a naturalistic basis can prove the existence of miracles because if you're if your presuppositions are naturalistic. You're gonna have to dismiss any evidence of miracles or just simply be agnostic and say I don't know I don't know can't can't tell don't know and That's what bugs me about the very end of this debate.

There's there's been a Mike's really I think about this and I don't know if Mike's gonna listen to this. I think probably he will. Mike says things at ends of debates that really really really badly damaged his debates.

I Forget what it was, but once he debated Bart and the poor man. Oh good grief. He had no voice. It was it must have just been So frustrating to go through that experience and I said that when we reviewed it.

Well, we didn't even review all it and we reviewed portions of it. But I Remember him saying something right at the end of that debate that just you just. That's the last thing people are gonna remember.

That's why I don't like doing audience questions at the end of a debate. Where you're wandering all over the place and the topic debate gets lost. That's why I Enjoy doing debates where you you know, the two people who prepared debate and that's it and then and then you go.

But he's gonna say something at the end of this debate right at the end and. And Bart's right to challenge him on it. Bart just laughs. Where he's gonna say well, you know I think the evidence demonstrates that Jesus rose from the dead as to who raised him from the dead.

We can leave that as an open question. What? No, you can't and no you're not. And Bart Bart laughs. Oh, come on. That's not the last thing you want to have people hearing because it just it it's louder.

Than everything else that was said and that's a problem saying that he's heard these things.

And that other people have passed this along to him and it's not implausible. That some of the people who passed these along to him were apostles were some of the disciples of Jesus.

We're gonna take a quick break and we'll come straight back into this with Mike and Where he takes this then. From 1st Corinthians 15 and these early accounts of resurrection appearances let's just fill you in again on who I and.

Let's just skip that little part here. If we move it over here. This is a new program. So I'm not sure.

There we go. Let's just that's how you do it. Slash unbelievable. There we go for all of those. I like that gentlemen. Let's continue where we left off. We were talking about 1st Corinthians 15 which as you mentioned Mike written by Paul is as it were one of the earliest accounts of Resurrection appearances in terms of when it was actually written down.

We'll move maybe on to the gospel accounts in a little while. But but you wanted to keep talking about this Mike. You heard what Bart had to say there at the end of that last section. Why why for you?

Do do we have to kind of take this seriously as it were as Evidence for the resurrection.

Well, we have to keep in mind that most people in antiquity could not read or write. Probably. Estimates I've heard are around 10 could read and 3 to 5 could read and write.

So this issue of literacy, by the way, I've got some books on it. I've been looking into it myself a little bit. I'm a little Not going to claim any expertise on it because I haven't read these books and so on and so forth to the depth that I Want to be able to comment on it, but it does strike me that especially amongst the Jews.

The issue of literacy would be a different issue than amongst non-jews. You have the synagogue you have the centrality of a written scripture you have psalm 119. I Really think there is a there is an issue there in regards to literacy Amongst the the Jews and hence the early Jewish Christians.

That would be different from the quote-unquote standard pagan populace. But that's something again as a billion things I'd love to look into and there's only so many hours in the day. A lot.

That was learned in antiquity was learned through oral tradition. People had phenomenal memories back then because they trained them. They didn't have all the written kind of materials and iPads and everything like we have today, so they worked on their memory oral traditions creed sermons summaries or speeches.

Even entire volumes like the Homeric epics could be memorized and and and performed so People did a lot with their memory. The Pharisees were really good at this and they had tradition. When we come to the New Testament and we read Paul He puts an emphasis on tradition take heed to the tradition You receive from us or if someone stops following the tradition that we hand it along to you.

You're not even to associate with such a person. So there was a big emphasis on this. So the question would be is where did Paul receive this this tradition from? It would seem a given rabbinic Sources and where they talk about how the tradition comes down from Jerusalem.

The fact that the Jerusalem Church Was the the capital for Christianity at that point would strongly suggest that the tradition is going to come from Jerusalem. The question that then would remain is well did Paul just say these things to give himself authority or was he?

Passing along actual tradition. Was Paul willing to corrupt the Jesus tradition and we can test him on this because in first Corinthians 7 he's talking about marriage and at One point we see where he makes this odd statement after saying hey, you can't get the this is interesting.

This is this is a good application. This is a subject I've raised many many times in a program before because Paul's statement where he says I not the Lord is very very frequently misrepresented by opponents the Christian faith Muslims all the time saying see this isn't the Word of God because this is I not the Lord.

All it is is Paul saying I as an apostle say to you This is how you handle us not the Lord. That is I am NOT quoting from a Jesus tradition. I am NOT quoting from anything that has been passed down from what Jesus said and interestingly enough. We look at the Gospels.

That's exactly the case. Jesus did not address this issue in any of the Gospels. That's all he's talking about. This is an interesting application of that.

Listen listen to what Mike does with it worst and unless your spouse cheats on you he's answering a question or what if my spouse is a non-believer and then he says well not the Lord, but I and He's not saying necessarily.

Okay. Well, this isn't the red letter edition of the Bible that you're reading here. He's just saying hey, listen, there was some Jesus tradition. Jesus really didn't deal on this. He didn't deal with a number of issues that have now come up in the church such as circumcision eating meat sacrifice to idols.

Non-believers. Hey, there was no church then so there wasn't a matter of being married to a non-believer. And he says okay here. Here's the deal in marrying and divorcing a non-believer and he gives the teaching and then he says this is my command Pass it along in the churches.

The important thing to recognize is that here Paul had a perfect Opportunity to invent some teachings about the matter imparted on the lips of Jesus. To make them authoritative, but he refused to do that.

He carefully distinguished the Jesus tradition from his own apostolic ruling which was equally binding by the way It seemed to him. So when we are hearing this Jesus tradition We can be entirely confident that we are hearing the voice of the Jerusalem Apostles and this Jesus tradition is what?

Precisely we have in 1st Corinthians 15 3 through 7 now, like I said, that's a good application.

You know here been the opportunity to make something up. He doesn't make anything up. And I think that's an excellent excellent application file that away along with the other information you have on that particular text.

Because again, like I said, it is misused all the time.

Oral Tradition, Literacy, and the Transmission of 1 Corinthians 15

Hmm and obviously a lot has been made in modern biblical studies Bart about whether Paul as it were kind of Reinvented Christianity in some way in his own image to some extent. I mean, do you accept what Mike has to say here though that we can trust that that Paul isn't kind of Turning it into something that it wasn't originally when it comes to the resurrection.

Well, I think the I think the important Mike makes some several important points. One of which is that there were not there were not written documents floating around for the most part about what had happened and that most Of its being passed along orally in a society where where most people cannot read or write.

I think where we disagree is on whether oral societies passed along things traditions reliably or not. In point of fact cultural anthropologists who have actually studied oral cultures Tell us that things get changed radically in oral societies and that that even Cultures that pride themselves on memory never pass along oral traditions verbatim that what happens in oral cultures is that it's simply assumed that whenever you pass along a tradition you modify it for whatever Context that you're telling it in and so things get changed by their very nature and they're supposed to change by their very nature.

Now at this point I was thought was that well, wait a minute. That would depend upon what is being passed on. I mean certainly Mythological stories and things like that would be changed to match whatever situation you were facing or something like that, but that's not the nature of the Gospels and the stories of Jesus.

That everything's getting lumped together here in one big pile.

What these anthropologists have told us is that the idea that something should be passed along without changing it is a phenomenon found only in written cultures and so.

People who live in written culture. Written cultures like.

Judaism who know that you can pass along things unchanged by writing them down have argued without any basis that in fact This also happened in oral societies. But in fact, it doesn't happen in oral societies.

Things always get changed and we know that the traditions about Jesus We're constantly being changed. All you have to do is to take to take the same story in any two Gospels and compare the stories with one another take the resurrection narratives.

Somebody is changing the stories and probably almost certainly at the oral level and certainly as well than the written level.

So here you're gonna eventually I don't think it's quite yet. But eventually you're gonna get the standard Bart Ehrman. It depends on which gospel you read. It's a bit of a gossip. Yeah, you know, I mean he's got this thing so well memorized that well, it's it's it's become so Programmatic that we could repeat it along with him at least those of us who have listened to him over and over again.

But you're eventually get the synoptic issues and stuff like that being thrown in.

The Gospels, Narrative Elasticity, and Different Audiences

Well, we did want to come to the Gospels themselves. But but what what do you make of. Bart's claims about oral traditions did involve change. My. Oh, I agree to an extent with that.

You know, certainly you could take and and modify and adapt to the particular context. We see Luke doing that on a number of occasions, you know some things and we see John doing it. You know, there is let narrative elasticity in there.

There's now. These are the weasel words that we use in scholarship.

Narrative elasticity intention in the text and all the rest. I kind of stuff there is there is a hesitation on the part of many even conservatives to engage in Harmonization of synoptic issues not like I said, I've been teaching through the synoptics now for years.

We're in the toughest part. I do not claim to have answers to every single question, but anyone who Would demand being able to have answers to every single question. I think is is being naive and and foolish but I at the same time, you know, it's like the Ibsyssum of vox abscissa maverba question.

Do you have the voice of Christ with very words of Christ? I don't even think that's a fair division of the question because what you have are the recordings of And let's leave John out for the moment.

He has his own purposes. And I I do believe that not only is John an apostle but that John is providing to us information the synoptic Gospels did not for Reasons, I think will be crystal clear in eternity.

But I just don't buy the idea that that we can understand every reason why the Information that is included in the synoptics is there and what's in John is there? I I think that there are so many possibilities as to why there is a difference there that Basically modern scholarship is just dismissed.

Because they treat these as naturalistic as just natural documents written by men. They don't there's no possibility of anything else when we look at Matthew Mark and Luke. It does sound like Mike is just assuming Mark and priority followed by Matthew and Luke Using mark and editing mark and changing mark and that's the standard perspective.

There's also as brothers perspectives out there that are more minority, but that's the standard perspective that is out there it does not sound like he's going with a An oral tradition that is being drawn from by each of the writers.

Which I think is significantly more a much better direction to go. I think it's much better to Realize the continued presence of the eyewitnesses and so on and so forth, but be that as it may you get this.

You're dealing with the reality. That there are incidents that are recorded where it's clearly the same incident. And I know there are some people say well actually, you know Jesus raised the same person three times or something like that or cleanse the temple three times or something like that.

I I don't think you can go there. I know there are people in the past that have I just don't do it myself. I just don't see that. There's Assistant, I would not want to debate that one against a a Bart Ehrman or something like that and you have Differences in the narratives you do not have mp3 recordings.

Okay, and people are demanding that you have mp3 recordings and I just don't think that that is a meaningful challenge against inerrancy the demand of ancient written records. That they be in essence.

Well, you know like you could take you could take the dividing line and I have programs I think even on this this Mac in front of me right now and You can train it to recognize my voice and it could spit out a transcript.

I know Google's doing that a lot now I'm really appreciating Google Voice because people leave me a Voicemail message and it ends up as a text on my phone. And is it perfect? No, but I can normally figure out exactly what's being said.

And if I have to go back and listen to it, I can go back and listen to it. You can people want the Gospels to be mp3 recordings transcripts of mp3 recordings and that's not what any of the writers say they're giving to us and.

So I just have not found an incident where? It is not perfectly understandable. Why a certain writer? Given the people he's writing to or how he's writing so on so forth. Just not found a situation yet where it's like I see there's they're just there's making things up as they're going along.

I've just not found that. There are perfectly understandable ways to to see why they have phrased things where they've phrased things. And if they're drawing from that oral tradition, I just I just don't see it.

But that's that's that's where we're. I.

Guess that's what's being called the narrative elasticity here. No question about that when we see it this in the Gospels. The question is does that really apply to the oral tradition itself as it's being passed along as oral tradition.

And I would say he would not have the same kind of evidence for that we do. Studies that have been done by I agree with Bart. On the oral tradition as it's done and there are questions about which one is more reliable.

There are some that look at African tribes today and how they're passing along oral tradition and then there are others that go back to the rabbinic tradition, which was far more Careful on passing along word for word and say African tradition is today.

Which one goes back to the New Testament times? We really can't say for certain obviously, I would prefer to think that it was the rabbinic mode, but In all honesty, I can't choose between the two because you know the African tribes of today don't exactly reflect first century a second temple Judaism and Second century rabbinic Judaism doesn't represent first century.

So It's hard to say but the amount of elasticity Elasticity within the oral tradition. I think was much less than it was when it came to writing narratives that used that.

The Reliability of the Resurrection Tradition in Light of Galatians 1–2

So you're confident that first Corinthians 15. It doesn't sort of isn't kind of There too much if you like wait when it comes to the possible changes in in oral tradition. You feel this this was something which was established and which was passed along.

Faithfully in that sense. Well, sure. And you know, remember who Paul's getting information from he according to Galatians 1 and Galatians 2. A letter that virtually all scholars regard as one of Paul's authentic letters.

He talks about going up twice to Jerusalem and meeting with the Apostles. Galatians 2 he's running everything past them to make sure he hasn't been working in vain all these years. He's running the very message.

He's been preaching past them Galatians chapter 1. He uses the term history side to meet with Peter meaning he's getting a history. He's doing an investigation about the past about Jesus. Okay, so I think there's really good evidence here that Paul's got reliable tradition.

Yeah, let me just give you a piece of evidence that in fact things got changed fairly radically at the oral level. Most scholars agree that Matthew Mark and Luke are so similar to each other because they have common sources written and oral and that John John may have access to what the other three say.

But he may also have been writing independently as stories seem certainly seem to to be independent of Matthew Mark and Luke. If Mark for example got his stories from the oral tradition and John got his stories from the oral tradition all you have to do is compare what Mark says about Jesus with what John says about Jesus to see if the oral can oral.

Tradition is perfectly consistent and not changing stories or not. Now. Listen, listen to what listen to that argument there. Well have the have the have the oral traditions changed compare mark with with John and of course Bart thinks there's just this huge massive difference now Mike is going to argue that that mark does present for example the deity of Christ things like that we'll hear that in a moment, but Here's here's the the question I have.

Why not allow mark and John to be writing to different audiences at different times? I? mean, is that Is that gonna change anything? I? mean, I can think of many instances when I have been traveling, you know.

Let's think about When I debate Shabir Ali at Biola, okay I'm going to give the information About that evening's debate. It's a big knee is big evening, you know 2 ,500 people there at least and and You know there was When I reported on it on the dividing line.

There would be certain parameters the things I would say I would not give you all the background information I may or may not have mentioned that when we got there. They had two comfy chairs set up like that.

You know and I said no, this is a debate not a love fest. We are going to be debating one another. We're gonna need some place to write. We need tables and no, you know, they wanted to sort of the, California, you know chill out type thing like oh Yeah, there were flowers in between and stuff like that.

And and we said no, I don't think so. But I might not include that. Depending on how much time I have us like that. Well, there are also conversations before and after that again. Depending on who I'm talking to who my audience is I might include might not include there are certain things I simply wouldn't say on this program.

That you know personal conversations with people you just don't you know, don't do that in in public. Isn't it interesting that a lot of the? Conversations in John are of that nature, especially from John 12 onward the personal encounters of Jesus with the Apostles and Teaching on the night of his betrayal and stuff like that.

There's a reason why that wouldn't be in Matthew Mark and Luke and so on and so forth. So I I think that The fact that you have different audiences needs to be kept in mind.

At this point as well. And the reality is Mark is very different from John in Just about every aspect of his portrayal of Jesus. And why would that be. It's not just because Mark and John had different personalities.

It's because they've heard different stories as the story circulated in different ways through the oral traditions down to the communities that then later.

Recorded them now. What's the assumption there? The assumption there is these are just human men. They're writing much later because Bart just assumes nobody who was one of Jesus disciples had the brains.

To write these things just couldn't do it just too stupid. So there's been way down the line. These are other people. They've heard different stories. That's why they're different. Not that these were eyewitnesses or first-generation witnesses and that they have Actually different purposes for writing the books they do and writing to whom they are writing to whom.

Well, I.

Agree that again, they there are differences within the narratives. There's no question about that. They're evident, but there is a difference we're talking about. Did the oral tradition itself change.

I'm contending that that remained intact. I am acknowledging narrative elasticity, but that doesn't mean that the oral tradition change.

Yes, but my point is that John and Mark both got their stories from the oral tradition and That the changes are it's not just a matter of stretching a little bit here or there. The changes are enormous.

In the Gospel of John Jesus goes around proclaiming that he is divine I am the father are one. Before Abraham was I am I am the way the truth in the life.

No one comes to the father but by me, you know, I really hope my Muslim friends are listening right now. Yes, Muslim friends. That's Bart Ehrman. The guy you like to quote all the time is Saying that the gospel of in the Gospel of John Jesus claims deity now He's could go on say he doesn't to mark and he's wrong about that.

But all the time you quote him and you know, you Just just I want you to hear how he interprets at least in the Gospel of John. He goes. Oh, yeah. Okay, those are clearly claims to deity and my Muslim friends are always going.

Oh, no, no, no, no, no. Well, you gotta be careful which sources you cite, you know, I mean Mark doesn't have any of these sayings.

I mean, is it that Mark didn't think the this would be important to point out that Jesus called himself divine?

It's or that maybe he has a different way of demonstrating the deity of Christ and he doesn't draw from those portions of Jesus ministry that were specifically Either personal disciples or the things that would distract from the particular points.

He was trying to make in his gospel. That's you know, maybe the Apostles got together and said this is how we're gonna present Jesus and this is what we want folks. I mean, there's all sorts of things we you know.

Modern modern scholars like Bart Ehrman seem to think that they can have such a massive amount of knowledge of the past. They can tell the people of past how they're supposed to behave and. There's you know, they just don't do that in any area, but they do it in this one.

It's only be the most important thing. So why does it mark? Why doesn't Mark have you. Because he hadn't heard these things?

Well, I I think that John I think that John doesn't do some he adapts here. He does what like FF Bruce claimed he said that What Shakespeare did to Plutarch's life of Brutus, that's what John has done to with the Jesus tradition and Excuse me while I.

Fall over here. I Well, I've really found that massively weak. It sounds like what he's saying is well part of the reason such a difference is because John really isn't giving us what Jesus said or Jesus really say these things.

Is just sort of a you know major expansion later on and I'm like.

Okay, definitely wouldn't go that direction. I think he makes it more dynamic he paraphrases but the claims for Jesus being divine are very Evident and mark, especially when we consider him within Second Temple Judaism his claims to be the apocalyptic son of man.

The Son of Man in Mark, John, Thomas, and Second Temple Judaism

Now before we get into this.

You've got to understand something that lose lost. I can guarantee it lost 98 of Justin's audience this point and If people are just aware of this one little thing then what's gonna fall here will actually make a whole lot more sense.

Because what Mike's gonna say is that look in Mark chapter 14? Jesus identifies himself as the Son of Man and he quotes from Daniel 7 and you'll you'll look back at the Son of Man and Daniel and in other extra biblical works of the intertestamental period and This was clearly a reference to a divine being and that's why the Jews Tore their clothes and said last for me and so on and so forth.

Here's what you understand and why Bart's arguing. Bart Ehrman holds a really weird view of this. Bart Ehrman says that Jesus was talking about somebody else. The Jesus is not identifying himself as the Son of Man, but was looking for another Person's coming who's the Son of Man now?

I don't know how in the world he gets there. This is one of the weirdest Strangest oddities about Bart Ehrman's beliefs. Which if you talk about beliefs, but the point is He doesn't believe that Jesus was identifying himself as Son of Man.

I think that results in one of the most strained weird readings of The trial of Jesus and things like he's left going. Don't understand why the Jews were so upset by this. It's like well, duh. I mean, it just seems so obvious.

But that's what's behind this and unfortunately, it doesn't come out in this conversation. And as a result you just left going why are they arguing about this?

But you'll see and I think are are very strong everywhere. You see it. Jesus is claiming to be the apocalyptic Son of Man and this is in every layer of the gospel tradition. It's in it's in Mark. It's in Q.